


Procedures of Intervention

by penguinparity



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Country Music, Gossip, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Sexual Fantasy, Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-28
Updated: 2010-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguinparity/pseuds/penguinparity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The slide from “the LT and the Iceman” towards “Nate and Brad” is slow. Their identities are blurred by a hundred different small interactions that mean very little on their own, outside of a larger context. One thing is clear; some of it was Ray’s fault. We are assured of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Procedures of Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you's to both [](http://kahtyasofia.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kahtyasofia**](http://kahtyasofia.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/pjvilar/profile)[**pjvilar**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/pjvilar/) for their beta efforts. This story is unquestionably better for their help and advice, any remaining errors are mine alone.  Specific notes at the end.

“_The history of thought is the analysis of the way an unproblematic field of experience becomes a problem, raises discussions and debate, incites new reactions, and induces crisis in the previously silent behavior, habits, practices and institutions.”_  
Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech

 

When Brad answered the door his face betrayed him momentarily, before closing off once again.  He was the Iceman after all.  Nate remembered him being calm and collected when everything went to shit.  When ROE is about as useful as a ‘birds and bees’ talk is to a horny teenager trying to fumble on a condom, that’s when Brad puts his game-face on.

So at 2 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, Nate found the Iceman there in force when the door opened. He noticed Brad’s hold on the door tightened slightly but he didn’t open it any wider.

“What are you doing here, LT?” Brad asked flatly.  Nate didn’t comment on the sudden use of his old rank.  He chose to ignore the fact he’d been a Captain when he’d left the Marines.  That he was no longer Brad’s CO.  That there had been a time when he’d just been Nate.

“I didn’t know,” Nate said as he tried to push his way into Brad’s house.  “No one ever told me the story.  _You never told me. _I had to learn it from fucking _Ray Person_.”

“It’s ancient history, didn’t seem relevant,” Brad replied.  His hold on the front door loosened visibly.

 “It’s only relevant if you think that I would do something like that.  If you think I would do that to you,” Nate argued, stepping forward tentatively.

“Come inside before my neighbors start gawking,” Brad said roughly.  Nate laughed in response, the tension that had been thrumming through his body bleeding out of him.  Brad smiled, wide and unrestrained, as he wrapped a hand around the back of Nate’s neck and pulled him inside.

-

It was Ray’s fault.  Normally, this would be where Ray would vociferously deny any and all responsibility.  This time, he was totally willing to lay claim to some of the blame (especially since it wasn’t _really_ his fault).  Now, some intellectual-elitist–ganja-and-dick-smoking-fuck once said that real love stories don’t have endings.  The same might be true for beginnings. 

To say there was a beginning would suggest there was a moment when someone said “a-ha!” or even “oh, well, shit,” or the planets realigned or some pussy, girly bullshit you find in romance stories.  None of those things happened.  This wasn’t a fucking romance novel.  But, really, where to begin? 

When some whiskey-tango-Nazi-genetic-experiment-wo

man did the right thing, for once in her life, and gave her kid up for adoption?  When Brad managed to use his Iceman glare from infancy to stare down social workers so that they put him in a nice Jewish home as part of some joke?  Do you begin when Brad’s fiancée left him for his best friend and then decided to rub a little extra salt into the wound by making him the best man at their wedding? Do you begin when Nate saw a former Marine speak at Dartmouth his junior year and changed his career plans?  Do you begin when they both became Recon Marines and Nate became the LT?  All of these things are totally relevant, but seem more like a _before_ than a beginning.

-

The first time Nate met Brad Colbert hadn’t been particularly remarkable.  He’d definitely heard of the Iceman, who in the Recon community hadn’t?  But the day he’d been assigned to Bravo Company he’d been introduced to about 50 guys, all of whom had used their formal rank and name.  The nicknames had only started to see common use weeks later as his men had become less guarded around him.  He hadn’t made the connection between Brad Colbert and _the_ _Iceman_ for almost a month.

By that point, Brad had already insinuated himself into Nate’s everyday interactions and training with the platoon.  His dry wit and geeky enthusiasm for gadgets making him stand out in Nate’s thoughts.

-

It was Poke who noticed first.  They were all Recon Marines after all. They were highly trained to observe silently.  No matter how careful you were, something would slip, eventually.

“I think the Iceman’s finally got himself a new piece of ass,” he announced one night, a few weeks after Nate had left the Corps.  Ray and Walt didn’t pause the seriously competitive game of demolition Mario Kart they were playing on the Wii Poke had bought for his kids.  Poke’s philosophizing was barely worth their attention, even less so when he railed against the White Man.  It definitely wasn’t worth losing a game of Mario Kart over.

“Bullshit, Brad would have told me,” Ray replied with absolute certainty.  He knew that like he knew that he was going to kick Walt’s ass in about 15 seconds.  When Walt beat him to a turtle shell not 5 seconds later, he retaliated by kicking Walt off the couch.

“Dog, you think I don’t know the subtle signs of a second person staying the night in a bachelor pad?” Poke asked, rhetorically.  Walt loudly protested Ray’s treatment of him and retaliated by going straight for the sensitive arch of Ray’s feet.

“There were two toothbrushes in the bathroom,” Poke said as he leaned in for dramatic effect. Ray gave up on the game and turned to give Tony a skeptical glance.  He tried to free his maligned foot and kick Hasser in the face.

“That’s all you got?” Ray scoffed, quickly thinking of a way to kill this before Poke mentioned it to anyone else. Even back home from OIF with half the company on libo, Marines could give the gossip circles of suburban housewives and high school girls everywhere a run for their money. 

Ray needed to investigate this for himself.  If Brad had a new girl, then Ray was going to be all over his shit for not letting him know. Brad might act like a lone wolf when it came to the rest of the platoon, but Ray was offended at even the _thought_ that he might fall into the same category.

So the next time Ray went over to Brad’s, he did some serious recon.  The second toothbrush was still sitting innocuously in the bathroom and practically screamed the presence of a co-habitant in Brad’s den of nerd-vana.  It was, as far as Ray could find – short of sneaking into the bedroom and rifling through the closet - the only sign that someone else was spending the night here.  Then Ray found the running shoes.

Like the toothbrush, at first glance they seemed innocent enough, except that Ray was trained to notice details.  The running shoes were sitting right next to Brad’s and looked to be a different size.  They were clearly not Brad’s.  For a split second, Ray was ready to burst back into the living room and pat Brad on the back for getting some.  Then he consciously processed the details of the shoes he was looking at.  They weren’t feminine at all.  They were a pair of _men’s_ running shoes.

Ray should have known better than to go asking.  Well, don’t fucking tell, indeed.

-

When they were still in the shit, back in Iraq, the two of them were always ‘the LT and the Iceman,’ or the Sir and Sergeant Colbert, but never just Nate and Brad.  It’s impossible to say when that transition happened because it wasn’t a particularly world altering moment.  The slide between the two identities was slow and blurred by a hundred different small interactions that meant very little on their own, outside of a larger context.

They had worked together as ruthlessly efficient professionals.  Person had noticed the silent communication that his TL and the LT had going on, of course.  Anyone with eyes and possibly even Hellen fucking Keller could have picked up on it.  Fuck, even Rolling Stone had noticed it.  Brad would just give Fick a look during a TL meeting, when they were all gathered around the hood of Ray’s victor.  Sometimes Fick would respond as if Brad had said something out loud, other times he’d just smirk right back with that tiny lift of the side his mouth. 

Ray hadn’t really invested a lot of thought in the idea that the rapport his LT had with his other team leaders wasn’t nearly as sharp, as honed or as non-verbal as it was with Colbert.  That rapport was probably why they’d been 2-1 and point of the platoon during the fucked up run to Baghdad. Especially since that often meant they’d been covering his six, in some fucked up roundabout way.  The LT needed all the cover he could get with the retard, short bus orders rolling down from Encino Man and Captain fucking America jamming up Ray’s radio screaming like he was a prom queen at a gay ass boy band concert.  The guys of 2-1 were fucking good at their jobs and Ray had other things to think about: like pussy, not dying, and coming up with a bullshit reason for the invasion to rattle off to Rolling Stone.

Sometimes, the LT and the Iceman surprised him though.  It wasn’t the time after the fucked up ambush on the bridge, when Ray had had to get out of his victor, screaming at everyone to unfuck themselves, and the LT had pulled his crazy ballet-dancing bullshit.  He wasn’t surprised that Brad had all but shut the LT down after that speech about petting the burning dog.  Brad’s reactions outside of Al Muwaffaqiyah were within his personal SOP; anger at one more officer falling on the idiotic sword of command. 

What _had _surprised Ray had taken place when they’d escorted the refugees from Baghdad 3 days later.  The LT came over to their Humvee just after they’d gotten the order to be Oscar Mike.

“We’re clearing through several towns on our way north.  RCT One has already rolled through here yesterday, so we shouldn’t encounter any hostiles,” Nate said as he pointed to several locations on his map between their current position and Baghdad.

“I trust you’ve been assured of this, Sir?” Brad asked.  Ray couldn’t help but laugh.  Even as he laughed, Ray noticed that, despite Brad’s mocking of the LT’s verbal tick, neither looked up to share their joke.  That was the third time that day he’d noticed them _not_ making eye contact in a moment where normally the nonverbals would be flying.  He had no idea what was fucking with their silent communication mojo, but clearly this called for a Ray-Ray intervention.

“I’m sure they’ll all be happy little peaceful villages, just like that fucking bridge we were assured had been blasted back into the Stone Age.  They’ll be all American Gothic and shit.  At least the pajama-wearing, goat herding Hajji version.  When the bullets start flying are you gonna go all ballerina on us again, Sir?  Get out there and shake your ass?” Ray asked as he pulled out a jar of Copenhagen.  There wasn’t even a pause in his diatribe as he shoved the dip between his gum and lip.  Walt laughed from up in the turret.

“How do you even know what the fuck American Gothic is, Ray? You’re a whiskey tango, NASCAR loving, trailer park piece of trash!” Walt cut in with another laugh before Ray could continue.

“Shut the fuck up, Hasser!  You’re an even bigger hick than I am and that’s saying something!  I’ll have you know that NASCAR is a place of learning and culture.  One time they had all these posters and shit up in the hallways walking up to the stands.  They were all different versions of American Gothic, one had the guy and girl all draped in American flags.  It was some stupid patriotic bullshit!  Another had Dale Earnhardt and some hot chick in a racing suit with his car in the background.  There was even one with the couple dressed up like a pair of fucking Army POGs.  It was the dumbest shit I’d ever seen, that’s why I decided to join the Marines and not the fucking pussy ass Army.  My mom made me read the fucking plaque next to the original, said it’d give me some culture or some shit,” Ray declared with a giant grin.

“Clearly your mother’s attempts to provide you with some form of culture have failed,” Brad cut in dryly.  His gaze cut straight to Ray, saying quite clearly he was on to Ray’s bullshit and it was not appreciated.  Ray responded with his best look of innocence, knowing it was about as believable as a thirty-year-old whore pretending to be a virgin.

“Gentlemen, as much as I appreciate a debate on the cultural contributions of NASCAR and ironic appropriations of American art, we have a road block to take down and we’re Oscar Mike in ten,” Fick said with the slightest of grins.  His gaze slid over Ray, Walt and Rolling Stone, who had been sitting silently in the back the entire time.  Then he turned and walked away to a chorus of ’yessirs’.  It didn’t escape Ray’s notice that the LT hadn’t looked directly at Brad during the entire exchange.  Ray watched Brad surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye.  He expected to see annoyance or even the typical Iceman veneer at the brush-off.  Instead, the look on Brad’s face was the same one he got just before they drove into the shit.  It was a look of calm and determined resolve.  Brad had apparently been expecting the LT’s behavior. 

That resignation was what had set off the alarm bells in Ray’s head.

After that, Ray was on 100% watch, waiting for something else to happen.  He waited for Brad to end up under their fucking vehicle again, hammering away at the sludge still stuck there, except it didn’t happen.  And like the mind-reading ninja that he was, Brad noticed that Ray was watching him.

“Ray, if you don’t stop staring at me and focus on the fucking road, Trombley’s going to start thinking you’re gay for me,” Brad said with a grin when they were five clicks out from the POG camp.  Ray flipped him the bird in response.  Of course Brad would start this conversation while he was driving, crammed in with Rolling Stone, Trombley and Hasser.  Instead of responding directly, Ray decided to go for a more subtle approach and break one of 2-1’s cardinal rules.

“He's flying high tonight, he's got a brand new lover.  
Here you come a-runnin,' You're looking for some cover.”

Ray belted out the first lines of Toby Keith’s classic at the top of his lungs and kept his gazed fixed firmly on the road.  Subtle, for Ray, was not unlike the effect a sledgehammer has on a brick wall.  He really had no idea what exactly happened between Brad and the LT, but he figured going excessively over the top might kick Brad back in the right direction.  Rolling Stone snorted from his seat in the back of the Humvee, having already witnessed a fight over the performing of country music in Brad’s victor.

“I know you're sad and lonely. I know you're feeling blue.  
You miss him so much, oh let me get too close to you.”

Ray punctuated the last line by leaning over and singing the last part directly to Brad.  Ray felt, more than heard, Walt laughing from up above.  Brad had yet to cut him off and Ray had made it a record distance into a country song without being threatened with physical violence.  Before Brad could say anything, Walt joined in for the chorus.

“Oh, he ain't worth missing. Oh, we should be kissing,  
Stop all this foolish wishing. He ain't worth missing.”

Ray turned his head fractionally toward Brad and was suddenly derailed by the sight of Walt’s hips swaying back and forth in the middle of the Humvee as he sang along.  Brad was staring silently at Ray with a flat frown.  Ray knew his momentary distraction wasn’t lost on Brad when the fucker smirked at him.  Ray snapped back to glare at the road as he sang the rest of the chorus, but he could see Brad’s smirk had transformed into a terrifying grin.

“I doubt singing about kissing me is going to assuage Trombley’s concerns about your apparent homosexuality,” Brad said, effectively cutting off Walt and Ray’s singing.  Rolling Stone laughed because, despite being occasionally perceptive, he didn’t get the unspoken part of their interactions sometimes.

“Fucking faggots,” Trombley muttered from the back seat.

At the time, Ray hadn’t really thought much of it.  It had been just one more instance of shit rolling down hill.  Ray hadn’t thought about the incident again, except to talk about the one time Brad’s panties had been in such a wad Ray had nearly gotten through half a country song before getting shut down.

-

Oddly though, that’s the story that came to mind when Ray found himself in the hallway staring down at the shoes of Brad’s mystery friend.  He didn’t know why he thought of that incident in particular or why it, above everything else, stuck out in his mind.  Ray knew with certainty that wasn’t the beginning of whatever _this_ was.  But it was something.  He didn’t even know for sure whose shoes they were, but if he was right, for once in his life, he needed to shut the fuck up.

When Ray finally returned to the living room, Brad sat watching television, unaware of the nature of Ray’s thoughts.

-

Nate was completely unaware of Ray’s Mother Hen behavior when they reached the POG camp.  He might have smiled indulgently if he’d seen the way Person had lambasted Colbert with badly sung country music in a misguided effort to cheer him up.  Instead Nate was distracted by thoughts of an entirely different nature about his stoic team leader. 

Lately he’d been struggling with maintaining that professional calm in the face of his own attraction to Brad. After weeks of denial and being blindsided by unexpected thoughts of him mid-jack, Nate had finally allowed himself to fantasize openly about Brad that morning during his combat jack.  Then he’d barely been able to look at Brad without thinking of it.  It had clearly been a mistake to give in; it was really fucking with his combat effectiveness when Brad was anywhere nearby.

“A word, Sir?”

Nate looked up to find Brad watching him placidly.  The calm stare sent a chill through him and Nate wondered if Brad had noticed his embarrassment earlier that day.

“Of course, Sergeant,” Nate responded.  He stood up from the back of the command truck and perfunctorily dusted off his uniform.  Brad turned and walked off towards the perimeter; his silent expectation for the LT to follow would have seemed insubordinate in almost anyone else.

“Roadblocks and running roughshod into ambushes.  This isn’t what we trained for, what we signed up for.  We came here with a clear mission and now. . .” Brad trailed off and turned to contemplate Nate.  His stare was unnerving. Nate wondered if Brad was truly talking about their missions.  “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

“This is a war to defy all expectations,” Nate said with an uncomfortable smile.  His gaze skittered past Brad’s shoulder and towards the darkness outside the camp.  He could feel Brad’s stare like a solid weight on his chest, assessing him.  Brad was silent for long moments, the weight of all they hadn’t said strung tightly between them.

“I trust, Sir, that if there were a problem you know you need not ask for my support,” Brad said cautiously.

Nate laughed listlessly in response and rubbed at his grimy face. He realized suddenly just how foolish and incredibly dangerous it was for him to even think that Colbert might suspect the real nature of his predicament.  For all that their working relationship was incredibly attuned and seamless, it was still exactly that: a working relationship in the middle of a combat zone where lives depended on their ability to work fluidly together.

“There is no problem, except in my head,” Nate replied dryly.  Brad looked at him sharply, his mouth flattening out into a frown.  Nate nearly fucking squirmed under his gaze as Brad laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Nate, you don’t have to deal with it alone. Talk to me.”  Brad’s soft words felt like a simultaneous stab to Nate’s gut and hot jolt straight to his dick.  It was the first time in Nate’s memory that Brad had called him by his given name and the sudden loss of the formality of rank brought with it a tangle of dangerous feelings.

In that moment, Nate realized he had stumbled upon the Rubicon without even realizing he’d been headed toward it.  Nate had pulled back and managed to say, with surprising calm, “Thank you, Sergeant, but I think you’ve just cleared up everything for me.”

He stepped back, spine straightening and met Brad’s surprised gaze full on.  Ignoring his racing pulse, Nate watched as Brad nodded stiffly and walked off.  Nate knew if he had any hope of saving his sanity or career he had to overcome this.

Nate forced himself to ignore the issue until the next morning when Rolling Stone managed to unhinge Colbert for a few brief moments.  He found himself unable to look away for long moments as Brad traipsed around shirtless.  Brad made a wide circle around the clearing, running with his arms thrown out and head thrown back.  It was the first time Nate had seen him so uninhibited and the sight was intoxicating.  As Brad circled around again, he spotted Nate standing next to the command truck and for a moment their eyes locked.

Nate felt the intensity of Brad’s look cut straight through him.  In the stifling heat of the Iraqi desert, Nate shivered.  Just before he turned away to swoop back towards the rest of the Marines, Brad smirked at Nate.  His eyes betraying more passion than the rest of his face.  Brad ran in another wide circle around the field before slowly careening back towards Nate.  As he approached Nate again, his back to the rest of the Marines, the smirk on his face fell away to reveal a more serious expression.  The sight reminded Nate viscerally of his expression from the night before when Brad had called him Nate for the first time.  With it came the realization that Brad was perfectly aware of his problems and hadn’t exactly turned a cold shoulder.

The sudden understanding jolted Nate back into the reality of their situation and he turned away swiftly as Brad sank into the grass and less loose a primal yell.

With bitter thoughts about the un-crossable division between officers and enlisted men, Nate walked away from the field.  It frustrated him for reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely that as Colbert’s Lieutenant he couldn’t enjoy the spectacle Brad was making of himself.

-

Brad had said he was going to miss Nate’s paddle party when the rest of the platoon asked, repeatedly.  He’d claimed he’d gotten word the training for a potential new mission was starting the day before and he’d be somewhere, deep underwater, while the rest of them were getting drunk and engaging in homoerotic displays of spanking.  Ray knew this was bullshit, of course.  He knew because he knew Brad.  Plus, Walt had been tapped for that particular mission and hadn’t heard shit about training.  But Hasser was a fucking pussy and hadn’t been willing to call Brad on his bullshit excuse to cut and run on their former CO’s last hurrah.

Brad never showed up, even as the party progressed from celebration to drunken revelry.  Yet Brad managed to make his presence felt, even if he was hiding like a fucking child.  When Gunny Wynn pulled out Nate’s paddle midway through the evening, there was a moment of stunned silence. 

The thing was breathtaking.  The paddle itself was made out of beech.  The grip had the gilt logo of the USMC: the eagle and globe shining brightly in silver and the anchor and continents overlaying it in gold.  The shaft was wrapped in a thick set of double cord, the red and blue of 1st Recon Battalion, square knotted most of the way down, and trimmed at each end in a row of Solomon’s bar knots.  At the top of the blade – the throat – the two bars of Nate’s Captain’s insignia had been embedded into the wood.  Below that, the ribbons corresponding to Nate’s various medals were placed in widening rows.  On the blade itself, the logo of their battalion had been burned into the wood above the following text:

_For dedicated, courageous and honorable service to his country:_   
_Captain Nathanial Fick, USMC_   
_Bravo Company_   
_1st Reconnaissance Battalion_   
_1st Marine Division_

_From this day to the ending of the world,_   
_But we in it shall be remember'd, -_   
_We few, we happy few, we band of brothers._   
_For he today that sheds his blood with me,_   
_Shall be my brother._

Someone gave a low whistle as they all admired the paddle.  Mike grinned and handed it over to Garza to be passed around and admired.  Nate looked a little shocked, as if he hadn’t expected someone to put that much obvious effort into his final gift from the USMC. 

“Damn, dawg,” Poke said when it came around to him. “I know you white folks are into arts and crafts and shit, but you’ve really outdone yourself this time, Gunny.”

“As a white man, you know how much I’d love to take credit for someone else’s work but I didn’t make it,” Mike said in his slow Southern drawl.  His gaze slipped over to Nate with the slightest suggestion of humor in his eyes.  By that point the paddle had gotten to Ray, who took the opportunity to slap Nate quickly across the ass before handing it over.

“Hey, it’s not a true paddle party unless someone gets paddled!” Ray protested when Walt tackled him to the floor.

“Alright, which one of you guys made this, it’s fucking exquisite,” Nate asked as he turned it over.  His eyes widened slightly as he read the inscription.  Inexplicably, he flushed slightly.  When no one immediately spoke up, Ray turned shocked eyes toward Mike.

“Gunny, tell me you didn’t contract that shit out to some POG!” Nate’s eyes immediately snapped to Mike Wynn in surprise, although they were obviously filled with suppressed laughter.  Nate didn’t believe for a second that Wynn would break the sacred tradition of the Recon community and let an outsider make his paddle.

“I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing, Corporal Person,” Mike replied with a wide grin.

“Shit, LT,” Trombley cut in from the back as he gestured with his half-empty beer.  “Brad made your fucking paddle.  He’s been obsessing over it since everyone heard you were leaving the Corps.  He just swore a bunch of us to secrecy and then was too much of a chicken shit to be here when we gave it to you.  If he wasn’t the Iceman you’d think the Sergeant was afraid he was gonna fucking cry or something.”

Trust Trombley to ruin a fucking moment.

-

By the time they’d been in Baghdad for several days, Nate felt he’d lost what little idealism in the Corps he had left.  Somehow, Brad always seemed to find him in those moments and offer up some dry observation to make him laugh.  Nate had no idea how the man managed to do it.  Brad’s situational awareness when it came to Nate seemed to know no bounds.

A week into their stay in Baghdad, Nate finally lost his shit. Lying above the park on the edge of the city as Schwetje tried, over the radio, to order him to send his men into what was tantamount to a suicide mission.  Nate couldn’t bring himself to verbally make the choice between a good officer and a good man.  He unplugged his radio instead.  Even Brad’s comment, that he trusted Nate’s judgment, felt like a platitude.  Nate’s laugh sounded hollow to his own ears as he lifted his NVGs to scan the park again.  Brad looked at him for a second, his expression nearly unreadable in the dark.

“Once more into the breach, Nate,” Brad said softly, moments after Rolling Stone had gone trudging back to the edge of camp.  Heat flared in Nate’s gut again at the use of his name.  It was only the second time Brad had ever called him by his given name. 

Suddenly, the boundaries he had drawn in his mind seemed so immaterial.  He knew he was going to leave the Corps when they got home.  This war and its bullshit had broken his faith. He knew he was in his dead time already, even if no one else did.  For all he knew, Encino Man might relieve him of his command tomorrow for his insubordinate refusal to send his men out tonight.

“Do you know where that quote is from, Brad?” Nate asked.

“Shakespeare, I believe,” Brad replied with a faint grin.

“From Henry the Fifth.  I always thought that play was kind of bullshit, myself.  If I’m going to waste my time reading historic adaptations, I’d rather waste it reading the original Greek and Roman masters,” Nate said.

“Your Ivy League prejudices finally show, I see,” Brad said with a wider grin.  He rolled back to survey the park through the night scope on his weapon.  Somehow he ended up closer to Nate in the process.

“Toward the end of the play, before the last big battle, King Henry disguises himself. He wanders among his men to raise their morale and discover what they truly think of him.  Afterward, he delivers this moto speech to his men before they go on to defeat the French.”  Nate kept his breathing slow even as he felt his pulse start to speed up at Brad’s proximity.

“Knowing the fucking French, I’m sure they just surrendered,” Brad replied.  Nate laughed at Brad’s sideways smirk.

“From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.” Nate quoted the line as he turned to look at Brad.  Brad turned his head to raise an eyebrow at Nate.  Nate smiled foolishly even as he felt his stomach clench with anticipation.  They were lying with less than a foot of space between them and even in the low light, Nate could see Brad’s expression clearly.

“And what did the men think of their King?” Brad asked quietly after a moment of taut silence.

“I have no idea,” Nate said as he picked up his NVG’s to look back at the park.  Brad let out a short breath, as if annoyed.

“I’m sure they loved him,” Brad said as he shifted again.  When Nate looked back again, Brad was no closer but his hand lay between them.

“Brad – ”

“After all, Shakespeare was known for his homosexual verbosity.  How heroic would the King be if his men hated him?  Unlike his other dick-suck stories, Henry V wasn’t a fucking tragedy, Nate.”   With that, Brad rolled away from the edge of the hill and onto his feet.

“There doesn’t seem to be any change in the activity in the park,” Brad said from behind him.

“No, there doesn’t.  We should head back. I’ll send Stafford and Christeson out here to take over the watch,” Nate replied as he slid back and stood up as well.  “Hopefully Schwetje isn’t waiting in camp to relieve me of my sidearm.”

“If he even tries, just call my name.  I’ll be your sledgehammer,” Brad said with a wolfish smile.

“Peter Gabriel, Brad? Really?” Nate asked, adopting a disbelieving look.

“Don’t knock him, Sir.  It was a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare when Genesis broke up.”

-

Months after Nate had moved to Boston to start his bullshit degree in advanced dicksucking, Brad mentioned to Ray that he was deploying to the UK to train with the Royal Marines.  Ray insisted immediately that they celebrate by drinking.  Somehow the drinking party ended up being just him, Brad and Walt.  A trip to the bathroom confirmed Ray’s suspicion that the toothbrush and shoes that had taken up residence in Brad’s house for the better part of six months had gone missing.  Ray decided action needed to be taken.  Very careful and subtle action, but action, nonetheless.

“Brad, I’m really disappointed in you,” Ray announced as soon as he was outside on the back porch where the three of them were drinking.  Brad simply raised an eyebrow, indicating just how little Ray’s opinion meant.  Or perhaps how frequently this pronouncement was made.

“First, you get a new piece of ass, who you’ve been seeing for at least like six months, and you don’t even tell me.  That really wounds me, man.  I want you to know, because how can you not confide juicy information like that to your friend Ray-Ray?  But worse, you’ve clearly broken up and you still haven’t said anything.  You should’ve called me, man.  We could have gotten shit-faced together, talked some trash!”  Ray ended in a huff and collapsed back into his chair.  He was quite proud he’d managed that entire speech without suggesting the person might be a guy, or made a reference to the ex-fiancée.

“They always leave, Ray.  Why bother getting drunk over it?” Brad answered philosophically, as if he’d read Ray’s mind.  Ray gaped for a second before he snapped his mouth shut.  Fuck.  It had to be bad if Brad wasn’t even denying it or giving Ray his ‘I _will_ hurt you, pathetic human’ glare.

“Fuck women,” Walt proclaimed and took another swig from his beer.  He’d broken up with his girlfriend of six months two weeks earlier and didn’t seem to be following his normal pattern of running after every available piece of ass.  Ray hadn’t quite figured out how to deal with that particular situation yet.

“Amen to that, Walt,” Ray agreed, clinking their beers together.  Brad just grinned and raised his in a mock salute.

Walt was passed out on the couch within two hours, having consumed nearly as much beer as Brad and Ray combined.  Ray might have been responsible for that, trying to get Walt drunk enough that he could corner Brad the only way he thought possible – while the man was a little drunk. The problem with that particular method was that Ray also ended up drunk and lost what little skill for subtlety he had.  They had wandered back out to the porch in the warm night air of Southern California, so if Walt was somehow still conscious he wouldn’t hear them.

“Look,” Ray started, “just because he moves across the country doesn’t mean he’s leaving you.” Even sober, Ray’s attempts at subtlety had always been a little lacking.  It was entirely absent while drunk, apparently.

“Shut up, Ray,” Brad said.

“Homes –”

“Do you even know what you’re implying, Ray? What the fuck is wrong with you?  That’s a career ending suggestion right there,” Brad cut in coldly, his face betraying no emotion.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Brad,” Ray scoffed.  “You better believe the second I even suspected, that shit went on lockdown in my brain because it’s not something I _ever_ wanted to think about, let alone talk about.  But I’ve got your six, always.”

Brad sat silently, staring at Ray as if he could divine the truth of Ray’s words directly from his gaze.  Ray suspected he might be able to do just that.  Or possibly, Ray just looked up to the man so much he ascribed God-like powers to Colbert.  Brad released a breath and looked away.

“Does anyone else suspect?” he finally asked.  Ray suspected that was probably as close as he might ever get to an admission. Fucking DADT.  Not that Brad was especially demonstrative, regardless.

“Poke thought you might have a girlfriend like, six months ago.  That’s when I figured it out, but I threw him off the trail,” Ray said proudly.  Ray wasn’t actually sure he’d done that at all. They’d both pointedly avoided gendered pronouns in the two conversations they’d had back after the initial discovery and then never spoke of it again.  Yet, the very fact that those conversations had been navigated like minefields told Ray he didn’t need to worry about Poke saying shit to anyone.  The knitting circle clearly hadn’t gotten wind of it because, whenever there was gossip about Brad, everyone made a point of mentioning it to Ray.  Marines might gossip like fucking girls, but they weren’t stupid. 

Brad raised his eyebrows, clearly expecting Ray to elaborate.

“Dude, you had two toothbrushes in your fucking bathroom and someone else’s running shoes in the hall.  Who the fuck has two toothbrushes unless someone is spendin’ the night?” Ray asked.  Brad stared blankly for half a minute before he started laughing.

“That’s your evidence? A fucking toothbrush?” Brad asked with a toothy grin.

“That was just the tipping point, homes!  Poke saw that and was convinced you’d found a new girl.  I saw that and then noticed the running shoes, which were obviously a dude’s,” Ray said.  Brad’s grin suddenly disappeared.  “Then I remembered all the shit that went down between you two back in Iraq and it made sense.  Especially when he moves across the country and suddenly you stop hanging out with everybody because you’re all pissy and the _toothbrush_ is gone.  Shit, I’m half surprised you weren’t lying under your damn motorcycle when we got here.”

“Nothing happened between us in Iraq,” Brad said flatly.  Ray backpedaled mentally for a second and realized exactly what he’d just implied.

“Fuck, Brad, that’s not what I meant.  I know neither of you are that stupid.  I meant that you two got each other, like mentally and shit.  The fucking super-stealth eye communication you had going on.  Besides, a Marine could barely touch himself out there, let alone anyone else, without half the camp knowing.  Christ, talk about learning to perform under pressure.”

“Marines make do,” Brad said as his lips curled slightly.  Ray wasn’t entirely sure if Brad was smiling and that thought curled in his gut.  He didn’t think Brad was going to beat the crap out of him for broaching the conversation, but he wasn’t entirely sure Brad would forgive him either.

“Hoorah,” Ray replied sarcastically as they clinked their beers together.  “But I’m serious, bro.  I’ve seen what he’s willing to do for you and I don’t believe for a fucking second that he’d just move to Harvard and dump your ass.  Especially not after the mind-fuck Cecilia pulled on you with your fucking best friend.”

“Ray, you have no idea what you’re talking about.  For the last time, shut the fuck up,” Brad said as he stood up to go inside.

The next morning, after Walt had stumbled out to his car with a cheery wave goodbye, Brad regarded Ray over a cup of coffee.  Ray wasn’t entirely sure what that particular look meant. He’d only seen it once before when Brad had first told him the story about his ex-fiancée.

“He doesn’t know,” Brad finally said.  “I never told him about Cecilia.”

-

Nate blinked blearily back into consciousness.  This wasn’t the immediate return to alertness, regardless of exhaustion, that he’d been trained to do for the past several years.  Clearly, a lot of alcohol had been involved.  The bedroom he was lying in didn’t seem familiar.  Nate wondered briefly if he had ended up crashing in Mike’s guest bedroom.  There had been rather ridiculous amounts of alcohol consumed the night before at his paddle party.  His former platoon had been quite determined to celebrate his leaving the Corps with alcohol poisoning. Except that Nate could remember leaving in a cab at some point.

The alarm clock on the nightstand next to him looked like some kind of ridiculous high tech amalgam of clock, alarm and music player.  Several copies of _Wired_ magazine sat next to it.  There were signs of habitation all over the room, so it seemed unlikely that he’d ended up in someone’s spare bedroom.  He could feel he was still dressed in his t-shirt and boxers.  At least he wasn’t naked in an unknown AO; that could have been awkward.

With a muffled groan, Nate rolled over and froze.  The space next to Nate was still warm and the pillow still held the impression of someone’s head.  Nate sat up as the remainder of the night’s memories came flooding back and he suddenly realized just whose bed he was in. 

Brad regarded him calmly from where he leaned against the doorway.  He was dressed in one of his old PT shirts and running shorts.

“Morning,” Brad offered blandly.  He was clearly waiting for Nate to set the direction of this conversation.

“Why aren’t you still in bed?” Nate asked.

“Wasn’t entirely sure what kind of reception I was going to get when you woke up,” Brad replied as he pushed off the doorframe and practically prowled back towards the bed.  “You were pretty drunk when you showed up last night.  Going on about how I’d apparently declared my undying gay love for you despite not actually being anywhere near you at the time.”

Nate snorted and flushed slightly, but he glanced pointedly at his gift where it lay discarded on the floor.  Brad laughed openly when Nate raised his eyebrows.  It was the kind of laugh Nate had almost never heard in Iraq, free and unrestrained.  It was the kind of laugh he wanted to hear more of.

“If _that_ is a declaration of love,” Brad said as he pointed to Nate’s Recon paddle, “then I think the Corps needs to start seriously reconsidering the efficacy of DADT.”  Brad knelt on the edge of the bed and leaned towards Nate until his face was a breath away.

“I suppose the real question is, how did you make that particular leap in logic?” Brad asked.  Nate’s breath caught in his throat at Brad’s slight smile.

“A good heart, Brad, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly,” Nate replied before leaning forward to bite at Brad’s lower lip.  Brad leaned back slightly and raised an eyebrow.

“Shakespeare, Nate?  And worse, the shitty play _Henry the Fifth_?  You really think that’s the best way to get me into your bed?” Brad asked with an entirely lascivious grin.  Nate smirked, hoping it had the same effect on Brad that Brad’s had on him.  He leaned back onto his elbows as he let his legs fall open, giving Brad a clear view of the erection tenting Nate’s boxers.

“Technically, into _your_ bed.  And you fucking started it.” Nate licked his lower lip.  “Now, the only question is, are you going to finish it?”  He felt his pulse thudding heavily; running a mile couldn’t produce this kind of adrenaline rush.

“Just remember you were asking for it when you can’t even remember your own name later,” Brad groaned as he lunged down onto Nate and captured his lips.  Nate slid his hands under Brad’s shirt to get access to the skin of Brad’s back.  He tilted his head back as Brad bit at his jaw, clutching at Brad’s skin in pleasure.  Nate slid one leg up and hooked it over the back of Brad’s thigh for leverage.  He reveled in the slide of skin as he raked a hand up Brad’s side.

“I can’t believe you made me go to sleep last night without doing anything,” Nate griped just before he flipped them over. Brad reached up to pull Nate’s hips down and thrust up against him.  They enjoyed the sensation together in silence for a moment, rubbing slowly against one another through their clothes.

“Who knew that Brad Colbert was my very own secret knight in shining armor?” Nate asked as he thrust down into Brad.  Brad flushed, much to Nate’s amusement.

“Fuck you,” Brad said with a grin that barely showed a glint of teeth.  He pulled Nate’s head down so he could whisper in his ear, “I just wanted to make sure you were completely sober when I fucked your pretty ass into the mattress.  That way you’d remember every, single, thrust.”  Brad punctuated the end of his pronouncement with several snaps of his hips.  Nate groaned as their erections rubbed against each other through too many layers of clothing.  Nate sat up and summarily stripped off his shirt.

“Clothes, off.”  Nate wasn’t above resorting to his officer tone if it got Brad out of his clothes faster.  He rolled off Brad to shuck his own boxers, then turned and yanked Brad’s shorts down past his hips.  Dropping Brad’s shorts onto the floor, he crawled back onto the bed.

“Impatient, are we?” Brad asked, his voice betraying him as he drank in the sight of Nate above him.  Nate settled himself over Brad’s hips and ran his hands down Brad’s chest, sliding them under the worn fabric of the shirt.

“Simply removing unnecessary obstacles.” Nate pushed the shirt up Brad’s chest until Brad shifted to remove it.  Brad tossed the shirt carelessly up over Nate’s head and settled his hands over the other man’s hips.  He rubbed his thumb slowly across the dip above Nate’s hipbone, watching as Nate stretched out gloriously above him.  Brad’s breath started to speed up at the devastating sight above him.

When Nate pinned Brad’s wrists to the mattress next to his head, he received a slightly amused glance and another thrust of Brad’s hips.

“I see we’re going to have to work on someone’s control issues,” Brad murmured.  He strained up slightly to nip at Nate’s lips.

“Fuck, I used to think about this in Iraq,” Nate groaned.  The reality of it was suddenly a bit overwhelming for him, subsuming Nate in shivery anticipation.  He bit at Brad’s neck and licked a wet line down to the juncture between neck and shoulder.  The taste of Brad’s skin was intoxicating.  Brad’s hips thrust forward almost involuntarily when Nate scraped his teeth against the skin there. 

“I couldn’t even look you in the eye after the first time I got myself off thinking about you,” Nate murmured.  He let go of one of Brad’s wrists and reached down between them.  Circling his hand around Brad’s cock, he stroked once.  He lifted his hand and stared straight at Brad as he licked his hand from palm to fingertip.  Brad groaned and twitched slightly beneath him.  Nate reached down and started jacking Brad with serious intent, sweeping his hand up to the crown as he rubbed his thumb across the tip.

“In some of my combat jacks, I’d just think about what you’d look like when you touched yourself,” Nate said as he jacked his hand faster.  Brad’s eyes gleamed for a second and he grinned.  He reached down to pull Nate’s hand away and grasp himself.

“Was this what you thought about, Nate?” Brad asked, his gaze dark with lust.  The sight was devastating for Nate, his gut clenching in white-hot arousal.

“Fuck, yeah,” Nate groaned.  At Brad’s implicit encouragement, he found his normally well-suppressed fantasies bubbling up onto his tongue, begging to be expressed.  He leaned forward on one hand far enough that Brad’s knuckles brushed against Nate’s cock as Brad stroked himself.  “I’d think about how you’d get yourself off when you had more than 10 seconds to yourself.  How’d you pull off all your clothes and splay yourself across a big bed.  I’d think about you playing with your nipples when you first started stroking yourself, before you got completely hard.”  Nate paused to lean down and lick at Brad’s right nipple.

“That sounds like some pussy gay ass fantasy,” Brad teased.  The harshness of his comment was completely undercut by the guttural groan that followed and the way his hand faltered on his dick.  Nate continued circling his tongue around Brad’s nipple for a moment before he blew cold air over it.  Brad’s nipple pebbled under the onslaught and flushed a dark pink.  Nate leaned down to circle it with his tongue again before scraping his teeth lightly over the nub.

“I’ll just have to disabuse you of that notion at some point, Brad,” Nate replied as he rubbed Brad’s left nipple with his fingertips. Leaning back a little, he continued, “After playing with your nipples, you’d be hard and tired of teasing yourself.  So you’d grab some lotion to slick up your finger.  You’d play with your hole a little, ‘cause you’d be thinking about how much you wished it was my tongue instead.  Would you like that, Brad? For me to fuck you with just my tongue?  I wonder if I could make you come with just my mouth.”

“F- fuck, Nate,” Brad stuttered as his hand sped up.  Nate tilted his hips slightly and rubbed his leaking cock against Brad’s rapidly moving hand.

“But even that wouldn’t be enough, so you’d start to fuck yourself with one finger, then two.  You’d pull at your balls because you wanted it to last, but eventually it’d be too much.  So you’d start jacking your cock while you fucked yourself with your fingers.  That image almost always made me come,” Nate said with a groan.  He reached down to stroke himself once.

“What did you do if that wasn’t enough?” Brad asked as his hips started canting up slightly.  Nate bit at his bottom lip and tried to hide his sudden and surprising embarrassment.  Even Brad’s breath catching at the sight of his flush wasn’t enough to stem Nate’s sudden flood of self-consciousness. 

“Tell me,” Brad said as he reached up with his other hand to slide around Nate’s neck.  The heat, want and openness in Brad’s eyes eased the tension that had suddenly seized in Nate’s gut.  Nate leaned forward on his knees so he could look down directly at Brad.

“I thought about you moaning my fucking name as you came,” Nate whispered into Brad’s ear. He bit the side of Brad’s neck just below his ear.

“Fuck, Nate, _fuck_,” Brad groaned as his climax hit him with force.  Nate watched hungrily as Brad stroked himself through his orgasm.  Nate leaned down to lick his way into Brad’s mouth, tongue sliding past Brad’s lips.  Jerking and shuddering in pleasure, Brad stared up into Nate’s eyes until he couldn’t keep them open anymore.

-

Nate didn’t have a definite plan when he’d left the Corps.  He’d thought about moving back East to be with his family.  He’d applied to Harvard Business School before his discharge.  The morning after his paddle party with Brad had him second-guessing that plan.  So he’d gotten a short-term consulting job in San Diego and had stayed. 

He stayed close to Brad and whatever it was that they had going on between them.  They didn’t really talk about it.  They didn’t talk about Iraq or what had happened before.  They didn’t talk about their plans for the future.  For once, they just lived.

When Nate was actually accepted into Harvard almost four months later he realized he needed to make a decision.  He’d been circling in a holding pattern ever since he’d gotten out of the Corps.  By that point he was sure he wanted any direction to include Brad.  Of course the timeline of his decision was taken entirely out of his hands when Mike overheard him talking to his mom on the phone about his acceptance.  That meant half the battalion knew by the next day. 

He hadn’t seen Brad for nearly a week, which wasn’t entirely unusual.  They both had busy schedules.  It gave him time to think about what they had between them and what moving to Boston might mean.  Aside from his incredibly drunken assertion about what Brad had meant when he’d made Nate’s Recon paddle, they hadn’t talked at all about any kind of feelings.  That was too real, too vulnerable, and anytime their conversations started to turn in that direction they immediately deflected with jokes and overt displays of masculinity. 

It hadn’t even occurred to Nate that something might be amiss until Brad showed up at his place.  Instead of the customary six-pack of beer he normally brought, he had Nate’s shoes and a shirt he’d left behind at some point.

-

On a Wednesday morning, Ray finally called Nate and told him a story.  Eventually.  After Nate hung up on him three times.  Ray still hadn’t quite mastered trying to combine subtlety and DADT.

There was silence on the other end of the line and Ray wasn’t sure if Nate had hung up on him again.  “Are you still there, LT? I mean, Nate? Shit, it doesn’t matter, let’s not front. I’m gonna keep talking even if you hang up on me.  This will be like a practice run for when I manage to get this out before you do hang up because I’m going to tell you this fucking story if it kills me.  Unless Brad kills me first, which he might.  So seriously, stop fucking hanging up because I’m leaving this shit on your fucking answering machine if I have to,” Ray said without pausing for breath, a trick he picked up from his days on the debate team.  When he finally did inhale, he heard Nate laugh on the other end.

“Alright, Ray, just tell me the fucking story,” Nate finally said.

“Okay,” Ray said, suddenly nervous.  He hadn’t quite planned this far.

“So Brad was engaged once, did you know that?” Ray asked.  More silence on the other end of the phone.

“Right, I’m gonna take that as a ‘no’.  The bitch’s name was Cecilia.  They were middle school sweethearts and dated on and off for about ten years.  They got engaged just after high school, before Brad enlisted in the Marines.  Everything’s great, fucking cats pooping rainbows, until Brad is on his second tour in Afghanistan.  He gets a Dear John letter from her.  As if that wasn’t enough of a kick to the nuts, getting dumped by your fiancée while you’re deployed, Brad finds out when he gets home that she’s gotten engaged to his fucking best friend.  Then, and wait for it, homes, they ask him to be the fucking best man at their wedding!  Brad, being the noble masochistic sonnovabitch we all love, of course agrees.”  Ray paused to take a breath.

“Why are you telling me this, Ray?” Nate asked.  His voice sounded flat, like it had in Iraq when he knew he’d gotten FUBAR orders and couldn’t do anything about it.

“All will become clear in a second, LT.  So, ever since then, Brad just kind of expects people to leave him, right?  Which is pretty shitty.  So you’re asking yourself, ‘cause God knows I fucking asked myself, why the fuck is this relevant to the current sitrep?  Then I remembered something.  Not too long after you got into your fucking Ivy League circle jerk, a bunch of us from Bravo were kicking it at a bar-b-queue at Poke’s place and Lilley mentioned you’d gotten accepted into that school.  Most of us are fucking hick-ass Devil Dogs, not college educated like you, but we were all surprised at how quick that happened, since you’d only gotten out of the Corps a few months before.  And fucking Christeson, who seriously might have been stalking you back at Pendleton, was all ‘No way, man, he totally applied for that shit before he even got out.’  And of course Brad heard all of this.”

“Ray,” Nate attempted to cut in.  Ray barreled on, refusing to let Nate stop him.

“Now, I just want to be clear that I’m not asking, so don’t go fucking telling.  Not because I don’t have your fucking six, man, just because I don’t need that shit in my subconscious.  So the way I see it, Brad hears all of that -” Before Ray could continue Nate cut in more forcefully.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Person. Shut the fuck up.” Ray might have been offended but he could practically hear the LT’s grin over the phone.

“Dude, I’m not even done with my story yet!” Ray protested.

“Ray, I don’t care, I need to go buy a plane ticket.  So for once, shut up,” Nate said with a laugh.

“Oh, for real, homes. Why the fuck are you still talking to me then?” Ray said with a giant grin he knew Nate couldn’t see.

“I’m agreeing with Person, the end is nigh,” Nate said with a laugh as he hung up.  A few minutes later Ray’s phone buzzed with a text message.  All it said was _I owe you a beer. Thanks_.

Ray laughed and typed in a response, _Shit, you owe me at least a case_.  A few minutes later Walt walked into the living room as he toweled off his hair.

“Thanks for letting me use your shower,” Walt said as he wrapped the towel around his neck.

“Shit, I know how much you stink after you go running, I like my sense of smell too much to suffer through that,” Ray said with a grin.  Walt pulled the towel off and snapped it at Ray in response.

“Did I hear you yelling earlier?  What the fuck was that about?” Walt asked as he walked into the closet that passed for a kitchen in Ray’s apartment.

“Nothing important, just some bitches with their panties all in a twist,” Ray said as he levered himself up off the couch.  Try as he might, his eyes kept skittering back towards Walt’s naked chest and low-slung jeans. 

“Hey, get me a beer while you’re over there.”

Of the many beginnings there could be in this story; that might just be one of them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: The song Ray sings is Toby Keith's He Ain't Worth Missing. At a paddle party, a departing Marine is presented with a paddle made by his brothers. One of the cardinal rules of the Recon community in particular, is that Recon paddles are only made by fellow Recon Marines. Which is why Poke was momentarily shocked at the prospect that someone else had made Nate's paddle.
> 
> Some people name their stories after song lyrics, I name mine after obscure philosophical concepts. I'd like to thank Foucault for this particular one, it also relates to the quote at the beginning.
> 
> Finally, a shout-out to this awesome fan mix by [livejournal.com profile] chemfishee . I listened to this nearly non-stop while writing the first draft of the story a couple of months ago.


End file.
